The Pascoal Family Virtual Scrapbook: December Update

Time to catch up on the blog before Christmas! Here's what's been going on in our world lately:

San Francisco
Laura and Jake took us as a treat to San Francisco for the weekend. It was so nice to have a spontaneous trip with our friends! They arranged for the boys to stay with their aunties and then we all took off for the Bay. We walked from our hotel to Union Square to see the Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony in front of Macy's. It was a very large, very beautiful tree. After hanging out there for a bit, we took the cable cars down to the Wharf where we saw a dinner show called "Tony and Tina's Wedding" at a restaruant called Castagnola's. The show was really funny! Almost like being at a real wedding - but more dramatic! We had breakfast the next morning at Cafe Mason, appropriately named! It was a fun getaway and we are really thankful that Laura and Jake wanted to spend the weekend together with us like that.

Drew on the Cable Car

Tree at Union Square

Eating at Cafe Mason with the Masons!

View from our Hotel

Rancho Cordova Tree Lighting
There's a lot of new shopping, dining and housing off Zinfandel and Hwy 50. So the Rancho Cordova Tree Lighting Ceremony relocated from in front of St. John Vianney's to a little park in the new developing areas called Village Green. We went to the ceremony with the boys and enjoyed meeting Santa, listening to local groups perform Christmas music, riding a little train, counting down for the tree to light, and a "snow" flurry when the tree lit up! There were local organizations and vendors there with free items (for instance, Rubio's served nachos, and Beazer homes had free balloons for the kids), as well as items for sale (Boy Scouts selling holiday wreaths, etc). The kids really seemed to like the snow, except that it was so light, that sometimes you would get a noseful of foam when you would inhale! Yikes! It turned out to be a really good evening.

Aiden with Santa- Aiden took 2 tries.
Decided he didn't wanna see Santa the first time.
Then he reconsidered and got back in line again.

Jeremy with Santa - telling him that he's been a "good boy".

Rancho Cordova Christmas Tree

There was a freak snow storm right when the tree lit up...and the snow was quite strange and foamy!

Birthday Party

One of Aiden's friends from school celebrated his 5th birthday in early December. Aiden was very excited to attend the birthday party at his house. Aiden picked out a present for his friend all by himself - a Red Power Ranger. Aiden has been pretending to be a red Power Ranger for the past few weeks, so that's the newest interest there. The party was great. We had pizza and brownies (kids favorites!) and there was a cool party craft - rubber band shooters! The kids decorated their shooters then went outside to knock plastic bottles off a TV tray. They ate it up! Jeremy would walk right up to the bottle and shoot it point blank, then be so happy when it tipped over! It was too cute.

Aiden with his rubber band shooter

Jeremy outside shooting down plastic bottles

Our Christmas Tree
Most recently, we went with Auntie Dionne and Uncle Vito to the Christmas Tree Farm in Apple Hill. That was a great day. The weather was perfect up in Apple Hill. Down in Sacramento it was all doomy-gloomy. But as soon as we got east of Cameron Park, we were above the fog and it was crisp and clear with a crystal blue sky. We were a little overdressed for the occassion in our scarves and big jackets, but it was a relief to see that sun! We went to McGee's Christmas Tree Farm for the tree. Since it's a flat-rate price for the tree (regardless of height), we got a HUGE tree this year. It's so fun to have a little change from the usual. It's fun to see our big tree when walking down the hallway to the living room. After getting the tree and having it tied to the top of the van, we went to Boa Vista Orchards to buy apple pies, apple dumplings, apple everything with Dionne and Vito. It was great, because we had gone early in the morning, and seemed to really beat the crowds. Yahoo!

Aiden told Vito that he wanted THIS tree. Unfortunately, it wasn't for sale. Plus, it would have been hard to tie to the top of the van!